Sadiqullah Khan

Sensibility - Poem by Sadiqullah Khan

If I made you speakMy heart’s dear lament, If you made me knowMy sweat’s worth, My rocking bed of tumult, Deficient bones.

And skin cracked into hide, My corner of lipsBleed, instead not suck, Taste of salt, The river’s noise, Is not music.My pan a beggar’s bowlTo the mighty water, My gain a grain of gold.My dreams washed down The floods.

But please, O empathy! Return my ‘card’, You took away with youThat I sit on the doors of apathy, On disheveled insensitivityOn the border of your cruelty, On the taste of your sensibilityOn your stolidity, O ethereal poet.

-To the gold panner girl of Nagar, from whom I took her expired income support card and never returned.